Is CDTI still Spain's space agency, or has AEE taken over?

Neither, cleanly. Royal Decree 158/2023 created the Agencia Espacial Española (AEE) to take over Spain's space policy and ESA coordination from CDTI, with a transitional handover of CDTI's space contracts. In practice CDTI still runs the R&D funding side — including PERTE Aeroespacial — so founders keep dealing with CDTI for money even as AEE becomes the policy contact.

How does a space startup actually get funding through CDTI?

Two channels. CDTI administers PERTE Aeroespacial aid lines: partially reimbursable financing that has covered up to 90% of R&D projects, 85% of direct innovation projects, or 75% of expansion projects. Separately, if you want to bid into ESA calls under programmes like ARTES or GSTP, CDTI is who processes the authorisation and issues the required letter of support.

What is CDTI?

CDTI (Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico y la Innovación) is Spain's public agency for financing business R&D and innovation, operating as a Business Public Entity under the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. Its Aerospace Programmes department has represented Spain at ESA since 1986 and has managed around 75% of the country's public space investment. Since 2023 a newly created Spanish Space Agency (AEE) has been taking over the space-policy side of that role, while CDTI keeps running the underlying R&D funding, including the aerospace pillar of PERTE Aeroespacial.

From Spain's ESA representative to funding partner

CDTI was created in 1977 as the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial and took its present name in 2022. For decades its Aerospace Programmes department was the operational face of Spain at ESA, and it still runs the "habilitación" process that grants Spanish companies the delegation's letter of support needed to bid into ESA programmatic lines such as ARTES and GSTP.

That changed structurally on 7 March 2023, when Royal Decree 158/2023 created the Agencia Espacial Española (AEE), reporting jointly to the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Ministry of Defence. The decree lets AEE assume CDTI's space-related contracts and operations, with transitional arrangements to keep them running during the handover. CDTI's newest statute, approved in April 2026, no longer mentions space functions at all — a sign of how far that handover has moved even as CDTI keeps administering the money underneath it.

Funding PERTE Aeroespacial

CDTI administers a core slice of PERTE Aeroespacial, the aerospace strand of Spain's Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, which the European Commission estimates will mobilise around €4.53 billion in combined public and private investment for 2021-2025. Under the plan's second-phase Addenda, CDTI ran a dedicated aerospace aid package worth up to €240 million in partially reimbursable financing — up to 90% of the budget for R&D projects, 85% for direct innovation projects, and 75% for expansion projects — open to Spanish-established companies.

For a founder, the practical read is simple: CDTI is still where the aerospace R&D money and the ESA letter of support come from, even as AEE becomes the policy voice. Check live tenders for what's open now.

Official sources: ESA — CDTI, CDTI — About us, BOE — Real Decreto 158/2023.

Written by Tymofiy Badikov, founder of VIRA.space (Virtual Innovation Research Assistant) — operated by Space Tech Gateway Sp. z o.o., Kraków Technology Park. VIRA tracks live European space funding calls and checks your eligibility free: see live tenders.